Re-Localizing the Food System

Three leading innovators show how to transform the food system to expand local economies and nurture vibrant community cultures. Hosted by Arty Mangan, Director, Bioneers Restorative Food Systems program. With: Michael H. Shuman, expert on community economics, author of Local Dollars, Local Sense; Severine v T Fleming, farmer, activist, filmmaker, founder of Greenhorns; Karen Brown, Creative Director, Center for Ecoliteracy.

Recorded Friday, October 17, 2014 at the National Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California.

What’s Good for Life Wins: The Biomimicry Scientific Revolution | Janine Benyus, Jason McClennan…

Bathing suits modeled on sharkskin that win the Olympics. Low-energy display screen based on peacock feathers. Nature has done everything human societies want to do technologically – without mining the past or mortgaging the future. Acclaimed author, naturalist and biomimicry leader Janine Benyus uncorks a mind-boggling bouquet of breakthrough innovations that, like nature, create conditions conducive to life. The astonishing work of biomimics Stephen Dewar, Jason McLennan and Bob Hawkins in this genuine scientific revolution shows why preserving nature and biological diversity is our best survival strategy.

Explore our Biomimicry media collection >

They Don’t Call Her Mother Earth for Nothing: Women Re-imagining the World | Shinoda Bolen…

Transformational women leaders are restoring societal balance by showing us how to reconnect relationships – not only among people – but between people and the natural world.  This astounding conversation among diverse women leaders provides a fascinating window into the soulful depths of what it means to restore the balance between our masculine and feminine selves to bring about wholeness, justice and true restoration of people and planet. Join Alice Walker, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Nina Simons, Sarah Crowell, Joanna Macy and Akaya Windwood to imagine a future where women, children, men and the planet can thrive.

Just Like A Woman: Nature, Chemicals and the Feminization of Science | Charlotte Brody

There is a fundamental need to restore a female perspective to the male-dominated world of science.  Is it any accident that the first person to sound the alarm about chemical pollution was Rachel Carson, a woman? These dangerous chemicals are “feminizing” all us critters by disrupting our hormone balances. How did we get here? And what can we do about it? Environmental health advocate Charlotte Brody suggests that female scientists, with a different way of seeing problems and solutions, may lead us toward a new and healthy approach to the connections between human health and the health of the planet.

The Green-Collar Economy: Jobs, Justice and Prosperity | Van Jones and Majora Carter

Just how dumb do they think we are? Who would believe that destroying the ecosystems on which all life depends, while dis-employing more and more people, is somehow good for the economy? But exactly that fiction of jobs versus the environment has been successfully marketed to us. Community organizers Van Jones and Majora Carter propose a radically simple solution for both environmental destruction and social inequality: Bring the rising green revolution to low-income, urban America.

Eco Schools: Educating for Sustainable Communities | Fritjof Capra, Cheryl Charles, and David Orr

Most American schools are flunking out when it comes to how well they integrate ecological literacy across the curriculum.  And many are doing no better than a C average with the idea that schools should be actively engaged in sustaining the natural and social communities in which schools exist. Fritjof Capra, co-founder of the Center for Ecoliteracy, and leading environmental educators Cheryl Charles and David Orr explore what’s working for the A+ schools that are successfully integrating ecological awareness, understanding and practices through the curriculum and the community.

Designing a World for the 100%, by the 100% | Elizabeth Thompson, Erin Meezan, Jane Harrison, and Dawn Danby

Leading women designers gathered by the Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) explore the principles of participatory design—inclusion, cooperation, community, regeneration—and how we can design a human world that meets everyone’s needs without harming the bio- sphere. Hosted by Elizabeth Thompson, BFI Executive Director. With: Erin Meezan, VP of Sustainability, Interface, Inc.; Jane Harrison, co-founder, PITCHAfrica/Waterbank Schools; Dawn Danby, Senior Sustainable Design Program Manager, Autodesk, Inc.

Recorded Friday, October 17, 2014 at the National Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California.

Climbing Mt. Sustainability: Doing Well by Doing Good in the New Ecology of Business | Ray Anderson

A handful of global business leaders are blazing trails to a biologically based “eco-nomics.” They are fundamentally recalculating core assumptions to allow business to make a fine living without killing the planet. Ray Anderson, leading-edge founder and CEO of Interface, the world’s largest modular carpet company, articulates his bold vision to operate the company to take from the Earth only that which the Earth can renew rapidly and naturally. His mission is a zero footprint by the year 2020. He calls on the entire industrial system to join him on the remarkable path to Mt. Sustainability.

Game-Changing Climate Leadership: What Happens In California Doesn’t Stay in California

As one of the world’s ten largest economies, California is emerging as the potential game-changer for global climate leadership. Using strategic alliances and smart policies that integrate ecology, economy and justice, these climate leaders show how: Tom Hayden, lifelong activist and former California State Senator; Vien Truong, Environmental Equity Director, Greenlining Institute; Wade Crowfoot, Former Senior Advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown.

Find out more about the campaigns that Vien Troung and the Greenlining Institute are waging.

Nature’s Intelligence: Interviewing the Vegetable Mind | Robin Kimmerer and Monica Gagliano

Are plants intelligent? If we knew their language what might they tell us? Potawatomi Indigenous ecologist and author Robin Kimmerer and evolutionary ecologist Monica Gagliano merge Traditional Ecological Knowledge with Western science for a surprising trip into the minds of mosses and chili seeds and the songs of corn. They agree what we really need today is a revolution in values, an “Honorable Harvest” of gratitude and reciprocity with our plant kin.

Find out more about Robin Kimmerer and how you can engage with  her campaigns and efforts by visiting her page on the College of Environmental and Forest Biology.

Find out more about Monica Gagliano and how you can engage with her campaigns and efforts by visiting her website.

City of Joy: From Pain to Power | Eve Ensler and Brock Dolman

Women are coming together to heal in community, with hands in the soil, in one of the most broken places on the planet, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Playwright and feminist Eve Ensler’s life-and-death struggle with cancer transformed her. At the heart of it was her reconnection with nature. She expanded her work to end violence against women and girls to include restoring nature and our relationship with nature. With master permaculturist Brock Dolman, she tells the hopeful story of the Congo’s V-Day Farm.

Find out more about Eve Ensler and how you can engage with her work by visiting her website.

Find out more about Brock Dolman and how you can engage with his campaigns and efforts by visiting Occidental Arts & Ecology Center.